Can a Skeptic Believe in God? My Story 2019910778, 9781400328055, 9781400328062

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C  S B  G

C  S B  G My Story

James B. Polson

© 2019 James B. Polson

Can a Skeptic Believe in God? My Story All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, scanning, or other—except for brief quotations in critical reviews or articles, without the prior written permission of the publisher. Published in Nashville, Tennessee, by Elm Hill, an imprint of omas Nelson. Elm Hill and omas Nelson are registered trademarks of HarperCollins Christian Publishing, Inc. Elm Hill titles may be purchased in bulk for educational, business, fund-raising, or sales promotional use. For information, please e-mail SpecialMarkets@omasNelson.com. All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the King James Version. Public domain. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Library of Congress Control Number: 2019910778 ISBN 978-1-400328055 (Paperback) ISBN 978-1-400328062 (eBook)

Information about External Hyperlinks in this ebook Please note that footnotes in this ebook may contain hyperlinks to external websites as part of bibliographic citations. ese hyperlinks have not been activated by the publisher, who cannot verify the accuracy of these links beyond the date of publication.

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he author is grateful to his wife, Nancy, his pastor, Ralph “Yankee” Arnold, and his dear friend and brother in Christ, Jay Kominsky, for their valuable advice.

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his book is dedicated to my beloved wife, Nancy, whose love, faith, and prayers have strengthened and brightened my life for more than sixty years.

C Acknowledgments Dedication Introduction Coming to Grips with Eternity A Glimmer of Hope Seeking Assurance A Faithful Bible Teacher God’s Answer to My Skepticism Selected Bible Prophecies Conclusion Bibliography Appendix: How You Can Have Eternal Life as a Gi

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his is my story, but it is really written to help you if you will ever face your own death someday and would like to know, for sure, where you will spend eternity. Maybe you are skeptical about whether it is possible to know anything at all about life beyond the grave and you are not interested in tales from charlatans and fanatics. I understand. I was also a skeptic, but I was driven by the thought that if there was even a small fraction of a chance that I could spend eternity tormented in hell, and I could do something now to change that, the stakes were high enough that I would be foolish not to check it out while I was still able. So I ventured forth to see if I could discover any truth about God and eternity. If you would like to bene t from what I learned, read on.

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y father was a good role model for seeking truth. Although encumbered with the imperfections of being human, he was known as an honest man among his family and friends. In addition, he had a high regard for science, education, and the arts. He was a factory worker in my early years, but by working during the day and attending night school at a university, he earned a degree in chemistry and became a chemical engineer. My mother was a talented artist who added beauty to our modest home. My parents sought the truth about God by regularly attending church, but for me church was a mixed blessing. e pastor used the Bible when he preached, and many people seemed to gain biblical insights from his messages. But I did not. I was confused for a long time about what one must do to escape from punishment in hell for one’s sins. However, by the time I entered college, I was studying the Bible prayerfully on my own and, I think, had placed my faith in Jesus alone for the forgiveness of my sins. However, when some acquaintances asked me how I knew there was a God and how I knew Jesus is the Son of God, I drew a blank. I said simply, “You gotta have faith,” as though having faith, supported by nothing, was God’s test of your character. at answer did not satisfy my acquaintances nor did it satisfy me, and I guess I knew in the back of my mind that my theological knowledge was a house of cards constructed on thin air. In 1959 I married a lovely young lady who had dedicated her life to the Lord, and we planned to build a home that was honoring to God. She graduated from nurses’ training, and I graduated from the University of Missouri, and, following graduation, I volunteered for the US Army. Once in the Army, I was isolated from my Christian friends and no longer attended church. I quit reading my Bible and quit praying, and over the course of a couple of years, my faith gradually dwindled away. I also became very sel sh. When I was released from active duty, I had one purpose in mind, and that was to create a pro table career for myself. To achieve this purpose, I entered graduate school at the University of Missouri.

In graduate school, I earned a PhD degree in pharmacology, a scienti c discipline which many people confuse with the profession of pharmacy. I was never trained to dispense medicines or ll prescriptions. I was trained to conduct drug research and to teach students how medicines affect the body. Aer postdoctoral training at the University of Minnesota, I was hired by the faculty of the newly established College of Medicine at the University of South Florida in Tampa. During the development of my professional career, I drew further away from God in my mind and heart. I no longer thought about God, at all, except when I ridiculed those who believed God could exist. My wife, on the other hand, never lost her faith or her faithfulness, and although we had not attended church for years, she continued to pray. Her prayer for me was that God would do something to bring me back to Him since she was convinced I was His child. God apparently answered her prayer in 1977 as He intervened in my life by allowing me to be in a car accident. On June 1, a young woman ran her car through a stop sign and plowed into the driver’s side of my car spinning it into a utility pole. I was injured. Lying in the back of a speeding ambulance, the thought crossed my mind that I could be dying without any time to prepare for death. It was a terrible feeling. But how could I prepare for death anyway? I didn’t know. But this was no joke, and half-baked theories about what happens to one aer death did nothing to console me in that moment of excruciating confrontation with my mortality. I knew I had an inner being, an awareness of myself and the ability to think, make decisions, and feel emotions. Yet, for all my biomedical knowledge and training, I did not know what would happen to my inner being when I died. Knowing I would face death again someday, I determined to nd out whether any truth can be known about God, death, and eternity—but how? I prayed, “God, if you exist, please help me nd You.” en I began my inquiry by giving it some serious thought.

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y line of reasoning led me to some unexpected conclusions. First, biomedical science, and the theory of evolution, cannot explain the existence of my thoughts, will, and emotions. ere is no reason to believe that a simple chemical reaction is aware of its own existence. If our bodies are merely derived from a complex combination of chemical and physical reactions, where did our self-awareness come from? How did we gain the ability to think and to feel emotions? And what happens to this immaterial part of our being when our body dies? Furthermore, if it is possible that science cannot explain our own self-awareness, is it possible that some greater self-awareness, such as God, could exist that is not explained by science? Second, if there is a God, He would probably try to communicate with His creation. Since written communication is the most reliable and long-lasting means of communication between people, it seemed logical to me that if God tried to communicate with mankind, written communication would be involved. erefore, a written work widely proclaimed to be the word of God would be something to consider as a likely communication from God to mankind—something like the Bible or Koran. Just because writings were claimed to be from God did not prove they were from Him. But they may be worthy of study as possible sources of revelation. ird, God might want to visit mankind—but what form would He take to do so? Most likely He would take on the form of a human being, in order to facilitate communication between Himself and people. However, He would want to set Himself apart from other human beings, but how? By appearance? By stature? By longevity? What about allowing Himself to be put to death in public and then coming back from the dead—that would do it. But that’s what Jesus did. Oh wow, that seems like real evidence that Jesus is God. en I remembered Jesus’ claim of divine origin and how Jesus’ followers gave up their lives rather than recant their claim that He had risen from the dead. As I sorted through these thoughts, I became very afraid, because I knew that Jesus, as the Son of God, and God His Father, did not tolerate sin, and I was a wretched sinner. For years, I had lived only for

myself, and I had utterly corrupted my life. As these thoughts ooded into my mind, I cried out aloud, “Jesus, God, help me, I have destroyed my life, but I don’t want to go to hell. Is there a chance for me to escape? Is there a chance for me?” As I ended my woeful prayer, the Bible verse John 3:16 came to mind for the rst time since my youth. Its words were the answer to my cry for help. “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” I said, “Lord, I don’t know for sure how to believe, and I am a skeptic; I am still not 100% convinced in my heart that you are truly God, but I am making a commitment right now. In the best way that I know how, I am placing my eternal destiny in Your hands. Please forgive my sins. Please save me. I am depending on You.”

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ver the weeks that followed, I uttered more prayers such as the following: “Lord, I am trusting in You the best I know how, but I am a skeptic. I may have trusted You fully when I was a youth, but now I am not who I was then. Now I am thirty-nine years old and a trained scientist. I need hard evidence to be completely con dent that You are real and alive and able to do what the Bible says You will do. I am asking You for more evidence so I can gain assurance. I am asking for proof that the words in the Bible are really Your words and not merely the words of self-appointed human authors. Make Your evidence something I can see with my own eyes and not merely read in a textbook or see secondhand on TV. Make it something that demonstrates that You are supernatural and that You are alive and working in the world today. I don’t care if You have to take me halfway around the world to witness Your evidence.” Also, I began reading the New Testament in a modern translation, and it raised many questions and doubts in my mind. So I prayed that God would lead me to a faithful Bible teacher who knew the Bible well and who could teach and explain it clearly. I didn’t care whether the teacher was a Jewish rabbi, Catholic priest, Baptist preacher, or a hippie with a Bible in his lap. I only cared that he or she understood and could teach the Bible clearly and faithfully. Most of all, I wanted someone who could show me clearly what the Bible says that one must do to escape hell re and get into heaven. It wasn’t just me that I cared about, it was my family, as well. I wanted them to know the truth, too. I sought out and attended the Sunday morning service of a church of the same denomination in which I was raised. e pastor was very forceful and self-con dent. But he was not a good Bible teacher. I could not get out of there fast enough. e last thing I wanted was an incompetent or false teacher interested in getting me or my family involved in his congregation or cult. I knew I needed God’s help, if He was inclined to give it to me, to nd the right teacher and to keep me from being led astray. My prayers intensi ed.

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prayed for weeks, and the weeks turned into months. Soon it was November 1977. I was in the living room of my home praying in the wee hours of the morning and pleading for the Lord to answer soon. e TV was on. It was one connected to a big antenna on the roof that received signals from broadcast stations. Stations oen signed off at night, and I thought a minister might give a short devotional at the end of the broadcast day on one of the stations. As the time for sign off drew near, I prayed earnestly that the Lord would allow a minister to give a devotional on TV that would provide a lead to the Bible teacher I had been looking for. I went into another room to get a pencil and paper to write the name of the preacher I prayed would come on and then came back to sit in front of the TV. Soon a pastor did appear on the screen who started to explain from a worn, notelled Bible what the Scripture says about how to go to heaven. From the few minutes he spoke, I was sure he was the kind of Bible teacher I had been searching for. His presentation was straightforward and based entirely on the Bible, with clear verses to back up every assertion. I was so engrossed in the message that I forgot to get his name, but I did manage to copy the name of the church before the program closed. It was “Calvary Community Church.” e next day I told my wife the name of the church and said that I didn’t know whether it was in Orlando or Miami or St. Pete, or where, but I wanted to go to it. She said she knew where it was, and it was less than 5 miles from our house. e man I heard was Dr. Hank Lindstrom. Soon, my family and I were in his church. I learned from him that John 3:16 meant just what it said and there were many other verses that supported the same truth.1 I learned that the Bible was consistent with itself, both Old and New Testaments—it did not contradict itself in any way when correctly understood. He showed me 1 Corinthians 15:3–4, which says that when Jesus died, He died to pay for our sins so we would not have to pay for them ourselves by separation from God, eternally in hell. Aer He was buried, He rose from the dead proving that He is God and that His mission had been accomplished. Pastor

Lindstrom showed me Ephesians 2:8–9 which says that we are saved by grace (unmerited favor), through faith, and that salvation is not of ourselves and is not earned by our works—therefore, it is a gi. Also, salvation is eternal. Jesus will never lose us (John 10:27–30) nor cast us out (John 6:37). In other words, all I needed to do was to trust Jesus as the Son of God, who died for my sins and rose from the dead, and God would forgive me and give me eternal life as a gi. erefore, whether I had rst trusted Jesus as a young person in Missouri or more recently in Florida, I was saved from that moment on, and for all eternity. But, now, skeptic that I was, I still needed the hard evidence I had been praying for to be completely convinced in my heart of hearts that Jesus is the Son of God and that the Bible was God’s inspired word, and not the work of mere, uninspired men. What kind of evidence could God offer to meet that need? Would He offer any at all?

Notes 1

Ralph “Yankee” Arnold, e Gospel Driven Man (Hull: Send the Light, 2005), 12–43.

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he answer came based on a simple fact. Only God knows the future far enough in advance and in clear enough detail to be able to write history centuries before it happens. In Isaiah 48:4–5, the Lord said He wove prophecy into the Scriptures in order to convince hard-headed skeptics that it was He who had inspired them to be written. e prophecy given in Ezekiel Chapter 37, in the vision of the valley of dry bones, is one such prophecy. According to the commentary by J. Vernon McGee,2 the prophecy written in the Bible in about 587 BC showed that the Jewish people’s predicted future condition would come about in three stages: (1) scattered among the nations, (2) gathered back into the Promised Land in unbelief, and (3) back into the Promised Land in belief in their God. Stage 1, being scattered among the nations, is illustrated by the dry bones and is spoken of in verse 11, as when the Jewish people believe they are without hope. It says, “…Our bones are dried, and our hope is lost: we are cut off for our parts.” Stage 2 has the Jewish people being gathered back into the Promised Land in unbelief. is is pictured by the bones that have come together in order and have been covered with sinews, esh, and skin to form bodies (vv 7–8). Verse 12 of the prophecy says, in part, “…us saith the Lord GOD; Behold, O my people, I will open your graves, and cause you to come up out of your graves, and bring you into the land of Israel.” In this verse, the prediction that they will be brought into the land of Israel is clear. But there is no breath in the bodies portrayed in the vision (v 8)—no life— representing the fact that, in stage 2, the Jewish people do not believe in their God. In stage 3 the bodies receive breath and become an exceedingly great army in the vision (vv 9–10). is represents the Jewish people in the Promised Land when they believe in their God. In verse 14, God says “And [I] shall put my spirit in you, and ye shall live….” Many Christians believe this speaks to when the Jewish people come to faith in Jesus as their Messiah and He returns to them. Today, the second stage of the prophecy is being ful lled, as the Jewish people are back in the Promised Land, in unbelief, aer nearly 2000 years of being scattered among the nations.

In a related prophecy (Ezekiel Chapter 36), the Lord spoke to the mountains of Israel telling them that the time will come when they will be inhabited and transformed by His people. Ezekiel 36:8–11 says, “But ye, O mountains of Israel, ye shall shoot forth your branches, and yield your fruit to my people of Israel; for they are at hand to come. For, behold, I am for you, and I will turn unto you, and ye shall be tilled and sown: And I will multiply men upon you, all the house of Israel, even all of it: and the cities shall be inhabited, and the wastes shall be builded: And I will multiply upon you man and beast; and they shall increase and bring fruit: and I will settle you aer your old estates, and will do better unto you than at your beginnings: and ye shall know that I am the LORD.” In his book, Israel Rising,3 Doug Hershey documents this transformation of the Promised Land with the help of photographs taken by Elise eriault. In March of 1978, barely four months aer I rst set foot in Dr. Lindstrom’s church, he led a tour of Israel. He invited me to go, and I thought it would be an interesting experience but did not see any more signi cance to it at that time. I did not know the prophecies of Ezekiel 36 and 37 until later when Pastor Lindstrom explained them to us. On our journey we entered the West Bank from the nation of Jordan, and my rst visual evidence that the Jews were back in the Promised Land was a beautiful blue and white ag of Israel streaming above a bunker at the far end of the bridge across the Jordan River. In Israel, I saw crops growing in elds that were once desolate. I saw Israeli tanks guarding the Golan Heights. I bought a leather-bound copy of the Hebrew Scriptures (Old Testament) from a Jewish shopkeeper in Jerusalem. I saw where the Knesset meets and toured a building where portions of the Dead Sea Scrolls were on display. I saw men in black praying before the hallowed Western Wall, and I was dismayed by the horrors depicted in the holocaust museum. I saw, with my own eyes, these and many more evidences that the Jewish people were repopulating and transforming the Promised Land. is was evidence which proves that the prophecies, written over twenty- ve centuries ago, are being ful lled today. is was evidence that proves the Bible is authored by a supernatural, all-knowing God, and not by mere, uninspired men. is was evidence that God is alive and working in the world today, because toward the end of His prophecy that He will restore the Jewish people to the

Promised Land, God said: “…then shall ye know that I the LORD have spoken it, and performed it…” (Ezekiel 37:14). You probably are not such a hard-headed skeptic that you need to travel halfway around the world to see evidence, rsthand, before you believe that these prophecies are being ful lled. But I, in my insecurity, felt that I needed that kind of rsthand proof—proof that God authored the Bible. at is what I prayed for. I thank God that He was kind enough to answer my prayers and give me the evidence that I asked of Him.

Notes 2 3

J. Vernon McGee, ru the Bible with J. Vernon McGee (Nashville: omas Nelson Publishers, 1982), 508–511. Doug Hershey, Israel Rising (New York: Kensington Publishing Corp., 2018).

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re there any other prophecies written in Scripture that have been ful lled? Yes, there are many. Some of them deal with the question of whether Jesus is really the Messiah (another word for Christ) promised by the Old Testament prophets. e Old Testament in the Christian Bible consists of the same writings as the Hebrew Scriptures of the Jewish faith. God inspired writers of these Scriptures to describe features of the promised Messiah in order to help people identify Him when he arrived on planet earth and to know, in advance, something about His work. ere are many such prophecies. I will quote only three examples of those that are especially meaningful to me. First, Micah 5:2 says, “But thou, Beth-lehem Ephratah, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel; whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting.” is is a reference to the promised Messiah or the one who “is to be ruler in Israel.” It speaks of his divine origin, as only God’s origin has been “from everlasting.” It says that Messiah’s “coming forth” (His appearance on earth) will be out of a little, insigni cant town in Judaea named Bethlehem. Seven hundred years aer this prophecy was written, Jesus was born in the tiny town of Bethlehem in Judaea (Luke 2:1–20) exactly as predicted. Second, Daniel 9:24–26 tells us that it would be 483 years, aer a commandment is decreed to rebuild Jerusalem following its destruction by the Babylonians, until the coming of the Messiah. It says in verse 25, “Know therefore and understand, that from the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem unto the Messiah the Prince shall be seven weeks, and threescore and two weeks….” e weeks written about are weeks of years, or seven-year periods. us, the prophecy calls for sixty-nine times seven, or 483 years from the decree of a certain commandment until the Messiah was to come to Israel. is prophecy was investigated by Sir Robert Anderson4 and by Alva J. McClain5 who reported that the prophesied

commandment to restore and build Jerusalem was decreed by Artaxerxes in the twentieth year of his reign. According to these investigators’ calculations, exactly 483 years aer the commandment, Jesus entered Jerusalem riding on the colt of a donkey and offered Himself as King of Israel, which ful lled the prophecy. Not only that, but the manner of Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem ful lled another prophecy found in Zechariah 9:9 which says, “Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion; shout, O daughter of Jerusalem: behold thy King cometh unto thee: he is just, and having salvation; lowly, and riding upon an ass, and upon a colt the foal of an ass.” Jesus was cruci ed a few days later. e prophecy in Daniel 9 goes on to say that the Messiah would be cut off (killed) before the city and the sanctuary (temple) were destroyed again. Verse 26 says, “And aer threescore and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off, but not for himself: and the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary….” e predicted destruction of the city of Jerusalem and the temple came about in AD 70. e death of the Messiah was predicted to come before the destruction of the city and temple, and it did—when Jesus was cruci ed in AD 32. us, this part of the prophecy was also ful lled as foretold. ird, the prophet Isaiah wrote that the Messiah would be rejected by the prophet’s people [the Jewish people], calling the Messiah “the arm of the LORD” in Isaiah 53:1,3–4, which says, “Who hath believed our report? and to whom is the arm of the LORD revealed… He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.” In this passage, the prophet laments that his report or testimony about the Messiah would not be believed by his people and that the Messiah would be despised and rejected. Seven hundred years aer Isaiah wrote this prophecy, Jesus suffered and died on the cross at the instigation of both Jewish and Gentile men and was rejected as Messiah and Savior by most of His fellow Jews in ful llment of Isaiah’s prophecy. Jesus was rejected despite having ful lled the prophecies pertaining to the rst appearance of the Messiah on earth, despite bringing a

message of love and salvation to His people, despite performing miracles of healing and raising of the dead, and despite allowing Himself to be put to death in public and then rising from the dead 3 days later. Most, but not all, Jewish people reject Jesus as their Messiah, even unto this day. ere is a special place in my heart for Jewish people for more than one reason. For one thing, many good Jewish friends and colleagues have had a strong positive in uence on my personal and professional life. For another, I believe it is through the Jewish people that God chose to give the world His Scriptures and the Messiah. In his book, e New Evidence that Demands a Verdict,6 Josh McDowell quotes 61 Old Testament prophecies about the Messiah that were ful lled by Jesus when He came to earth. McDowell also cites Peter Stoner’s report7 of Hartzler’s application of the principles of probability in order to demonstrate whether the ful llment of prophecies was merely by chance. He considered just eight of the ful lled prophecies and found that the probability that all eight would be ful lled merely by coincidence was one chance in 100,000,000,000,000,000 (10 to the 17th power). As an illustration, it was explained that it would be like taking 100,000,000,000,000,000 silver dollars and laying them over the state of Texas. ey would form a layer of coins two feet deep over the entire state. en mark 1 silver dollar, and hide it somewhere among the mass of coins. Now blindfold a man and tell him he can travel as far as he wishes, but he must pick up 1 silver dollar and claim that it is the marked one. e chance that he would pick up the correct marked coin would be the same as the probability that the eight prophecies would all be ful lled by chance alone. In other words, it is extremely unlikely that the prophecies of the Bible were ful lled merely by coincidence.

Notes 4 5 6 7

Sir Robert Anderson, e Coming Prince (Grand Rapids: Kregel Classics, 1957). Alva J. McClain, Daniel’s Prophecy of the 70 Weeks (Winona Lake: BMH Books, 2007). Josh McDowell, e New Evidence at Demands a Verdict (Nashville: omas Nelson Publishers, 1999), 164–202. Peter W. Stoner, Science Speaks (Chicago: Moody Press, 1963).

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hen I was a skeptic searching desperately for some evidence to support the claim that the Bible was God’s revelation to mankind and that Jesus was God visiting the human race to save us from the consequences of our sins, I prayed that God would have written something into the text of the Bible that would prove that it was authored by Him and not merely by uninspired men. I didn’t know what that evidence might be. But history written by God-inspired prophets, centuries before it took place, turned out to be the answer to my prayers. I have summarized four prophecies in this book—all of which have been ful lled: (1) the regathering of the Jewish people in the land of Israel aer nearly 2,000 years of being scattered among the nations, (2) the predicted birthplace of the Messiah in Bethlehem of Judaea, (3) the accurately predicted time of arrival and death of the Messiah on his rst visitation to earth, and (4) the Messiah’s rejection by most of Isaiah’s people—the Jewish people. ese are only four of many prophecies that have been written into the Old Testament of the Bible and already ful lled. e probability is in nitesimally small that these plus all of the many other ful lled prophecies of the Bible have been ful lled by chance alone. In other words, I believe the evidence presented above will enable a skeptic such as I was to believe that the Bible is authored by God and that Jesus is the Messiah (the Christ), the Son of God. Aer having studied the Bible and applied its principles to my life for more than forty years, I have found many additional reasons, besides those outlined above, to have con dence in Jesus and the Bible. One of those additional reasons is the evidence presented in the Bible that convinced Jesus’ disciples that He really did rise from the dead.8 God did not despise my need to have evidence and reason to underpin my faith in Him. Rather, He graciously met my need, and for that I am eternally grateful. I believe, with all my heart, He will do the same for you, if you seek His truth with an open mind. Jesus said, “If any man will do his [God the Father’s] will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself ” (John 7:17). God loves you and wants you to

bene t from Jesus’ death on the cross to pay for your sins. Jesus said, “Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me hath everlasting life” (John 6:47). If you never have before, why not trust Him right now?

Notes 8

James B. Polson, Four Proofs of Jesus’ Resurrection (Nashville: Elm Hill, 2018).

B Anderson, Sir Robert. e Coming Prince. Grand Rapids: Kregel Classics, 1957. Arnold, Ralph “Yankee”. e Gospel Driven Man. Hull: Send the Light, 2005. Hershey, Doug. Israel Rising. New York: Kensington Publishing Corp., 2018. McClain, Alva J. Daniel’s Prophecy of the 70 Weeks. Winona Lake: BMH Books, 2007. McDowell, Josh. e New Evidence at Demands a Verdict. Nashville: omas Nelson Publishers, 1999. McGee, J. Vernon. ru the Bible with J. Vernon McGee. Vol. 3. Nashville: omas Nelson Publishers, 1982. Polson, James B. Four Proofs of Jesus’ Resurrection. Nashville: Elm Hill, 2018. Stoner, Peter W. Science Speaks. Chicago: Moody Press, 1963.

APPENDIX

H Y C H E L   G

T

he Bible says that all of us have sinned (broken God’s Law). We have lied, stolen, or perhaps, even worse.

“For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God.” (R :)

e consequence of sin is death, which includes separation from God, forever, in hell. “For the wages of sin is death.” (R :) “And death and hell were cast into the lake of re. is is the second death.” (R :)

You must be perfect to enter heaven—not guilty of even so much as one lie. “And there shall in no wise enter into it any thing that de leth, neither whatsoever worketh abomination, or maketh a lie: but they which are written in the Lamb’s book of life.” (R :)

ere is nothing you can do on your own to gain the righteousness you need in order to get into heaven. You need a Savior. “But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as lthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities like the

wind, have taken us away.” (I :)

But no matter who you are, and no matter what you may or may not have done in your life, God loves you and sent His Son, Jesus (the second person of the one triune God), to pay for all of your sins by His death on the cross so that you would not have to pay for your sins yourself in hell. Aer He was buried, He rose from the dead and now is alive forever. “For I delivered unto you rst of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures.” ( C :–)

All you must do to have Jesus save you from hell, and take you all the way to heaven, is to believe that He is God from heaven Who paid for all of your sins by His death on the cross, and aer He was buried, that He rose from the dead, and, therefore, you trust Him to keep His promise to forgive all of your sins and give you eternal life as a gi. You do not need to stop committing sins, you do not need to promise to obey God’s commandments, you do not need to commit your life to Christ or make Him Lord of your life, you do not need to be baptized in water, and you do not need to do any other kinds of good works in order to be saved from punishment in hell. Of course it is a good thing to do good works and it helps your spiritual growth aer you are saved, but good works cannot help you obtain eternal salvation. When you trust Jesus as your Savior, He imputes to you the righteousness you need in order to get into heaven. “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” (J :)

“For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gi of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast.” (E :–)

“For he [God the Father] hath made him [Jesus the Son] to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.” ( C :)

Once you have placed your faith in Jesus as your Savior, you can be certain of going to heaven whenever you die because the Bible testi es to that truth. Eternal life is eternal. You will never lose it. e Bible is your written guarantee. “If we receive the witness of men, the witness of God is greater: for this is the witness of God which he hath testi ed of his Son. He that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in himself: he that believeth not God hath made him a liar; because he believeth not the record that God gave of his Son. And this is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life. ese things have I written unto you that believe on the name of Son of God; that ye may know that ye have eternal life, and that ye may believe on the name of the Son of God.” ( J :–)